The PapilloCheck Assay for Detection of High-Grade Cervical Intraepithelial Neoplasia

Human papillomavirus (HPV) testing is used in primary cervical screening, as an adjunct to cervical cytology for the management of low grade abnormal cytology, and in a test of cure. PapilloCheck (Greiner Bio-One) is a PCR-based DNA microarray system that can individually identify 24 HPV types, including the 13 high-risk (HR) types identified by Hybrid Capture 2 (HC2). Here, we compare PapilloCheck with HC2 for the detection of high-grade cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN2+) in a total of 8,610 cervical cytology samples from the ARTISTIC population-based cervical screening study. We performed a retrospective analysis of 3,518 cytology samples from round 1 ARTISTIC enriched for underlying CIN2+ (n = 723) and a prospective analysis of 5,092 samples from round 3 ARTISTIC. Discrepant results were tested using the Roche reverse line blot (RLB) or Linear Array (LA) assay. The relative sensitivity and specificity of HR PapilloCheck compared with that of HC2 for the detection of CIN2+ in women aged over 30 years were 0.94 (95% confidence interval [CI], 0.91, 0.97) and 1.05 (95% CI, 1.04, 1.05), respectively. HC2 missed 44/672 (7%) CIN2+ lesions, while HR PapilloCheck missed 74/672 (11%) CIN2+ lesions. Thirty-six percent of HC2-positive normal cytology samples were HR HPV negative by both PapilloCheck and RLB/LA, indicating that the use of HR PapilloCheck rather than HC2 in population-based primary screening would reduce the number of additional tests required (e.g., reflex cytology) in women where underlying CIN2+ is extremely unlikely. HR PapilloCheck could be a suitable HPV detection assay for use in the cervical screening setting.